


Coda

by dragonofdispair



Series: The Perfect Song [3]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Break Up, Epilogue, Mental Breakdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-16 00:29:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10560332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofdispair/pseuds/dragonofdispair
Summary: Nothing lasts forever.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry about last week. I had this written, but I was on a trip. I still planned on posting it, but didn't think of it on Friday when I got up. By the time I remembered, it was late enough that Ao3 would have marked it as going up the next day, and I realized I hadn't had it beta'ed. Instead of harassing my beta and stressing myself while I was away from home, I left it. Here it is now.
> 
> Beta'ed by Rizobact.

Jazz was leaning tiredly against Orion’s door when the librarian opened to his insistent knocking. They’d been friends for fifty vorn, but this was the first time they were seeing each other in person. They sized each other up. Vidchatting left a few details out. Like relative size. Everyone was the same size on a tablet’s screen. In person, Orion was a big mech. Not  _ huge, _ but built solidly. Jazz, on the other hand, was tinier, more flexible, with much thinner armor. A small light frame that had been designed for a lot of climbing. He was also exhausted, and he knew it showed when he smiled at the red and blue mech. 

“Hey, Orion. Good to finally meet you in person.”

“Oh! Of course! And I’m definitely happy to see you, Jazz, but… why?”

“Was wondering if I could crash on your couch for a bit, while I get myself situated. Pro-- He kinda kicked me out.”

It wasn’t  _ quite _ true.

First Aid had removed all the sex toys and control devices the cycle his contract was up with Prowl. Taken out the latches and locks and transformation inhibitors, and filled the holes where they’d been bolted to his armor with active repair nanites so they’d heal cleanly and quickly. As soon as Jazz got a repaint, there wouldn’t even be any sort of scars. Prowl had hovered, and when the operation was over, he’d been there while Jazz relearned how to drive and how to walk without a tail. Both of which felt extremely weird still. Not as weird as his mind finally being completely his own again, having firewalls, but weird.

They’d even continued interfacing. 

But as Jazz had recovered and started looking for gigs… That’s when the tension had begun. Prowl had started being his own, extremely controlling, self, setting curfews that a performer (especially one playing in the sort of places that’d take a technician caste mech moonlighting as a performer) couldn’t keep. Holding him down to interface, which Jazz still liked,  _ wanted, _ but it was the sort of controlling Jazz couldn’t deal with when he was supposed to be learning how to be his own self, not  _ just _ Prowl’s plaything. And, worst of all (for both of them, Jazz had learned) getting frustrated by Jazz’s resistance. Prowl still wanted Jazz, wanted Jazz to be  _ his, _ and his  _ alone _ .

But Jazz figured they should certainly still make a good try at having a relationship. He didn’t think it was hopeless. They just needed to figure out new parameters. He’d been willing to sit, talk things out. Frustrated as he was, Prowl hadn’t gotten violent with him, so Jazz thought they still had a chance. They hadn’t hit any relationship-ending event horizons.

Apparently Prowl hadn’t agreed.

Jazz had come from a gig to find that Prowl had waited up for him. More, he was waiting right outside their apartment door with a box. The  _ No Clutter _ rule had not been rescinded or lightened in fifty vorn, so all of Jazz’s things still fit in that one box.

Prowl had given him the box, while Jazz stared in shock, unable to comprehend what was happening.

“Take it,” Prowl commanded and, still in the habit of obeying Prowl’s commands without question, Jazz did. “You have a dream. Go, follow it. Or stay. But if you come back here tomorrow, I will bolt that collar into your neck and chain you to the berth and  _ never _ let you free again.”

The images that conjured  _ still _ made Jazz’s frame shudder in arousal. 

He’d left anyway.

He’d gone first to Ricochet’s place, the old apartment the twins had once shared in Polyhex. After fifty vorn, his twin still hadn’t touched or packed any of Jazz’s old things. Stepping back into Two-Tone’s life had made Jazz’s plating crawl. Not that Ricochet had expected to get Two-Tone back exactly as he’d been. He knew his brother had changed. They both had. They’d kept in touch, Ricochet had visited Praxus as often as he could. But Ricochet still thought of “Jazz” as a temporary thing. Two-Tone would come back changed, yes, but he’d still be Ricochet’s to protect.

Ricochet’s protection felt a lot like Prowl’s control, and Jazz couldn’t stand it. 

They’d parted much less abruptly than Jazz had with Prowl, with promises to write and call and visit, and that they’d be together again when they’d both finished figuring out who “Jazz” was besides Prowl’s fragtoy (not that Jazz had said that last bit out loud to Ricochet). 

So Jazz had grabbed a flyer for the “Cybertron’s Got Talent” competition, and set out for Iacon. The prize was a caste exemption, and a tutor, and a professional contract with a recording company. Everything Jazz had ever wanted. Even non-winners, if they were good enough, could get snapped up by record companies looking for new talent. Those would file for caste exemptions on behalf of their new stars. Good deal. 

Upon arriving in Iacon, he landed on Orion’s doorstep.

On his own, Jazz  _ could _ have rented a hotel for the two kilocycles left until the competition, and probably during it too. But he wasn’t used to sleeping alone. He wasn’t sure he could, and the only person he knew to impose on was Orion. 

“So… couch?” Jazz repeated when Orion had been silent too long.

“Sure, Jazz,” Orion said, letting him into the apartment. “Stay as long as you need. I don’t have a couch though.”

Orion, he found, was a cuddler, and perfectly happy to share his bed with his friend. They didn’t interface. Jazz wasn’t sure he could, with someone other than Prowl. Not yet.

He had already entered his name and paid his entry fee for the competition. Now he had a place in Iacon to stay for a while, and a warm frame to hold him while he slept. Tomorrow he’d get that repaint and start working on his competition routines. He was tired of black. Maybe he’d try white this time.

White with some color. Jazz liked that idea.

*

*

*

Prowl watched the competition from the medical holding cell in First Aid’s clinic. 

_ Mine, _ was still his thought, every time Jazz came up on the stage, and then he had to consciously correct himself.  _ Not mine. _

The worst part, as far as he was concerned, was that he  _ remembered _ loving Jazz. He  _ remembered _ loving him for being himself, as well as his. But that emotion had started fading, with the others, when Jazz’s schedule meant they could no longer spend the better part of two shifts networked. When Prowl had been forced to stop using Jazz’s RAM to run the emotional and social programs he couldn’t run for himself.

It had been the last vestiges of that love that had made him throw Jazz out of his apartment. Jazz needed to follow his dream, and he couldn’t, as long as Prowl -- the dangerous, emotionless,  _ possessive _ Prowl he’d been before they’d met -- still had a claim on him. 

Sparkbreak had come and gone in three full cycles spent in the station’s tantrum room. First Aid had been forced to come in and sedate him to get him to stop. When he’d woken, there had been nothing in Prowl’s spark for Jazz except the blank confusion of why he was acting this way. Why wouldn’t his certainty that Jazz belonged to him fade? Their contract was up; Jazz was free to go. He was  _ mine/not mine. _

Fifty vorn had been enough time for Captain Brass and the lab techs to get used to a Prowl they could work with. First Aid had stepped in and put Prowl on indefinite medical leave before the Captain could outright fire him for backsliding. The medic had escorted him to his apartment for him to pack up his belongings. First Aid hoped Prowl could come back before the lease was up, that time to recover from sparkbreak was the only thing he needed, but he didn’t believe it would be possible. As a result, First Aid hadn’t let Prowl leave anything behind, even when the sight of the deactivated toys in the other box under his bed had almost sent Prowl in a jealous rage right there. Not even when he’d refused to even look at the additives and other cooking supplies that had accumulated in the kitchen.

First Aid had donated the additives themselves to a small hard-luck clinic he knew of, and packed the tools in with the rest of Prowl’s belongings. Now everything was in storage. Only the tablet had come with him to the medical holding cell. Jazz’s collar… Prowl hadn’t been able to keep it at all; it had gone with the rest of Jazz’s things when he’d sent the mech away.

First Aid refused to outright commit Prowl to a mental institution -- no matter how logical such a move should have been -- so he was instead in a sort of limbo. Held without a crime, on leave when he wasn’t technically sick. A psychiatrist came and went, but Prowl’s problem wasn’t something he could solve. No amount of therapy or  _ talking _ about his nonexistent feelings was going to change what Prowl was. It was, as First Aid had always insisted, a medical problem. It was up to him to find his new normal and regain enough functionality to resume work.

And he couldn’t stop watching the competition. First Aid had told him Jazz had entered. Prowl had been glued to the screen ever since.

He was still the most beautiful thing Prowl had ever seen.

_ MINE -- No… not mine. _

_ His own. _

_ * _

_ * _

_ * _

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo... I guess this is the point where I admit the title song is one about grief and mourning... Check it out here: [The Perfect Song](https://enterthehaggis.com/track/320024/perfect-song) by Enter the Haggis.
> 
> ::hides::


End file.
